Making a Birth Plan
270
Decisions to be made
There's a lot to think about when you're pregnant, and many choices to make along the way. Your maternity team can help you make the right decisions, but no one knows better than you what’s right for you and your baby. The information in the links below will help you think about what you want, and plan for a happy, healthy pregnancy.
What sort of antenatal care do you want?
Learn about your options and how to find the care that suits you best.
More about antenatal care
What’s important to you about how you give birth?
Making a birth plan will help you decide what’s important to you.
More about making a birth plan.
Where do you want to give birth?
You can give birth at home or in a hospital unit run by a maternity team.
More about deciding a location.
What sort of pain relief do you want during labour?
Most women use some pain relief in labour. Find out how the various options work, and which ones are right for you.
More about pain relief.
How do you want to feed your baby?
Choosing whether to breastfeed or bottle feed your baby is a big decision.
More about feeding.
Your birth plan
Don’t know what a birth plan is?
Read more about why making a birth plan is important
Before you start to fill in the birth plan below, get informed about the topics you’ll need to consider, such as pain relief and where you can give birth. To learn more, click on the following links:
Where you can give birth
What happens during labour and delivery
Forceps and vacuum delivery
Caesarean section
Pain relief
Feeding your baby
Routine care that your baby will receive after birth
Please note that this page will time out at 30 minutes. This means that anything you write will be lost if you don’t save within minutes of opening the page. Once you've saved the page, you also need to save again:
- within every half hour, and
- before you leave this page.
You can save your birth plan by clicking the save button at the bottom of this page, or clicking the save button in any of the boxes on this page. You can also print out a blank version of the birth plan that you can fill in by hand before completing your final version online.
